Thursday, December 14, 2006

It's been a year since my last real post. A year. Worse than that (maybe "worse" isn't the right term...) I haven't drawn seriously for over 4 years. Four Years! But the forces have been gathering. An almost pre-war energy has been swirling around--the kind of energy you read about in The Lord of the Rings. Something's going to happen. I almost said finally, but that would suggest an end to the long creative lull I've had. That kind of thinking is destructive because when I hit the next wall I won't be expecting it and it will stop me for a longer period next time--or even for good.

All this isn't to say that I've been doing nothing. I've actually been extremely busy and, looking back at it, a lot of that effort has been well-placed...preparatory. To create there has to be something to draw from. I've been playing my guitar every day for over five years now. Last night I watched Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival on PBS and played along with most of the acts. (When John Mayer came on I put my guitar on my lap and just stared in awe at the young punk. How can you have a hero that's 13 years younger than you?) Inspiration was oozing out of the television and I was catching it in the palms of my hands. I started playing guitar about 5 years ago (I've been playing drums for 20) and I've never held any real hope or belief that I'd be any good--I just love it. What happened to me last night, though, gave me a little hope. I noticed that my finger know where to go for the most part. Armed with my basic knowledge of chords and structures, I'm able to intuit form and play along. I still have no illusions about being any good at guitar but there's a reason, now, to keep pursing my other creative goals.

I just read a paragraph on Mayer's Blog that says all this much better than I can:

"I can't really explain what happens when, as an artist, you get that message from the inside that says "time to make another one." One day you're sitting around, living off the fat of the land, and then as if from out of nowhere, it taps you on the shoulder. The slate goes shiny and clean. Those colors come back - it all starts as colors - then moods, then settings, then sounds, then words. And churning beneath that the entire time is the doubt; doubt that you'll find the rhyme, doubt that you'll ever connect that verse with that chorus, doubt that you have anything left to say that matters."

I can't make any predictions about how long this will last or how long I continue to post to this blog even. But something is in the works and for the first time in a long while, I'm feeling the excitement.